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Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Tax Records Online

Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes. -- Benjamin Franklin

Just as we dread paying taxes, so too did our ancestors. The good thing for us is that with taxes comes paperwork that can assist you in researching your ancestors. While these lists aren't going to provide you with a lot of detailed information, it will place your ancestor in a certain place in time, thus making it easier to find other documents.

To learn more about the history of American taxation, check out the Tax History Project, http://www.taxhistory.org/. This web site includes a virtual museum of tax history covering the years 1660 to present day. Besides tax history you can also peruse the tax returns of the current President and Vice-President of the United States as well as some previous Presidents.If you are curious about where your tax dollars go, see the graph at http://www.thebudgetgraph.com/ . This provides a visual representation of where our tax dollars are spent by the federal government.

In general, when looking for tax lists consult the Family History Library catalog at www.familysearch.org, the state library or archive, U. S. Genweb, www.usgenweb.com, county sites and other large genealogical databases. The web site Census Finder at http://www.censusfinder.com/, is not only an index of free web sites that include the U. S. Federal census but also sites that feature other types of name lists including tax lists.The following is a "partial" list of the tax records you can find on the Internet.

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About Me

Gena Philibert-Ortega holds a Master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies and a Master’s degree in Religion. Presenting on various subjects involving genealogy, women’s studies and social history, Gena has spoken to groups throughout the United States and virtually to audiences worldwide. Gena is the author of hundreds of articles published in genealogy newsletters and magazines including Internet Genealogy, Family Chronicle, GenWeekly and the WorldVitalRecords newsletter. She is the author of the books, From the Family Kitchen (F + W Media, 2012), Cemeteries of the Eastern Sierra (Arcadia Publishing, 2007), and Putting the Pieces Together . Gena is the editor of the Utah Genealogical Association’s journal Crossroads. An instructor for the National Institute for Genealogical Studies, Gena has written courses about social media and Google. She serves as President for the So. California Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists and is a board member of the Utah Genealogical Association. Her current research interests include social history, community cookbooks, signature quilts and researching women’s lives.